Lithography is used in many areas of modern science and technology, including the production of integrated circuits, information storage devices, video screens, micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), miniaturized sensors, microfluidic devices, biochips, photonic bandgap structures, and diffractive optical elements (1-6). Generally, lithography can be divided into two categories based on patterning strategy: parallel replication and serial writing. Parallel replication methods such as photolithography (7), contact printing (8-11), and nanoimprint lithography (12) are useful for high throughput, large area patterning. However, most of these methods can only duplicate patterns, which are predefined by serial writing approaches and thus cannot be used to arbitrarily generate different patterns (i.e. one mask leads to one set of structures). In contrast, serial writing methods, including electron-beam lithography (EBL), ion beam lithography, and many scanning probe microscopy (SPM)-based methods (13-16), can create patterns with high resolution and registration, but are limited in throughput (17, 18). Indeed, only recently have researchers determined ways to use two-dimensional cantilever arrays for Dip-Pen Nanolithography (DPN) to produce patterned structures made of molecule-based materials over square centimeter areas (19, 20).
DPN uses an “ink”-coated atomic force microscope (AFM) cantilever to deliver soft or hard materials to a surface with high registration and sub-50-nm resolution in a “constructive” manner (3, 16, 21-23). When combined with high density cantilever arrays, DPN is a versatile and powerful tool for constructing molecule-based patterns over relatively large areas with moderate throughput (1). The limitations of DPN are: 1) the inability to easily and rapidly work across the micro and nanometer length scales in a single experiment (typically, either sharp tips are optimized to generate nanoscale features or blunt tips are used to generate microscale features) (24); and 2) the need for fragile and costly two-dimensional cantilever arrays to achieve large area patterning. Indeed, no simple strategy exists that allows one to rapidly pattern molecule-based features with sizes ranging from the nanometer to millimeter scale in a parallel, high throughput, and direct-write manner. Thus, a need exists for lithography methods that can yield a high resolution, registration and throughput, soft-matter compatible, and low cost patterning capability.